Note: Please bear with me as previous posts come tumbling down around my ears....
I've finally decided to go back to school. I've picked my favorite graduate program and spoken with the director to determine my class schedule and application prep for next fall. I've arranged with my boss to cut down my hours at work so I can take classes. I've posted an affirmation on my blog that I will only be in Portland one more year; after that I will officially be a masters student at CSUMB.
And now I'm questioning.
How do I know a masters program is really what I want? Should I spend more time exploring academically before choosing a program? Should I work in the field first to determine if I even need a masters degree to obtain work that is fulfilling?
What if all I really want is simply to go home, to be near my family?
What if I just want to go to CSUMB so I can go and work at the Lab as a jack of all trades, because I've done it before and it made me happy? What if I'm just using grad school as an excuse to go back to work at the Lab, even though I know it can never be quite the same?
I worry because I am a jack of all trades -- in all the personality assessment and skill assessment stuff I have done with my co-worker (a career counselor), my strongest specialty has been generalization. I'm interested in everything, I want to try everything (maybe that's why I have such trouble with restaurant menus), and I worry that I would (a) not be able to choose a thesis topic, and (b) feel frustrated with the resultant limiting of my scope. I want to take one class in every subject; I can't think of a particular focused topic that interests me enough to be the sole focus of two (or more) years of intense study and research.
It gets back to an observation I've made before about myself: I seem to completely lack ambition, in the conventional career sense. I am perfectly content to do whatever is needed, in whatever capacity I fit -- whether it be peon or project manager -- as long as I enjoy it. I have no desire to work my way to "the top" because, for me, that's an artificial goal. To me, being at the top means doing soul-satisfying work, and that covers a wide range of possibilities. Do I need a masters degree to get to the top? I don't know.
That's what I'm questioning.
It seems that second-guessing myself is also a fundamental aspect of my personality...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Wow, you're on a real adventure!
I share your quality of not being ambitious in a career ladder-climbing sense and being more of a jack of all trades. I have a lot of outdoor hobbies I really enjoy. (I, like you, am a dedicated bicycle commuter.) And I'm doing a PhD in computational math (at your alma mater) because I like pretty much all of science and engineering and could never choose a specific field, and computational mathematicians work on a variety of applications -- we're sort of the jack of all trades of science and engineering. But I don't have any huge plans for when I'm done.
I like an adventurous life. Sometimes that means moving away from what is comfortable. Of course the difficulty is determining where the boundary between adventure and foolhardy recklessness lies.
If I knew you personally, I would say, "Jump in! I'll throw you a floaty thing if you find the water is too deep." Since I don't know you, I'll only wish you good luck with your decision.
Post a Comment